By Ed Mead
Arecent decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit could have broad implications on policies governing the operation of inmate law libraries. The case addressed the common problems of proper training for inmate law clerks; redefining prisoner indigency requirements; the minimum amount of ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1992
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1992, page 1
More then 40 percent of the black men age 18 to 35 in the District of Columbia were "firmly in the grip of the criminal justice system" on an average day last year, according to a study by the National Center on Institutions and Alternatives (NCIA), an Alexandria, Virginia, based ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1992
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1992, page 2
A prisoner in a federal correctional institution filed a civil rights lawsuit seeking damages only for alleged deliberate indifference to his medical needs resulting from a back operation and a history of psychiatric problems. The suit was brought pursuant to Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U.S. 388 ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1992
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1992, page 2
Frank James was a probation violator in the Milwaukee County Jail in Wisconsin. He was attacked by a parole violator over a gambling debt and had his neck broken rendering him a quadriplegic. James filed suit under § 1983 claiming that jail officials had violated his eighth amendment right to ...
By John Adams
I'm a prisoner at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla; Washington. I've been incarcerated for more than a decade. In 1984, 1 began studying the law while fighting for my life after stabbing another inmate to death. Eventually, my criminal law studies lead me to civil ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1992
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1992, page 3
Doris Clarkson is a deaf New York state prisoner who filed suit under 42 U.S.C. F 1983 because the women's prison at Bedford Hills, New York, lacked any type of facilities for deaf prisoners. At this point in the legal process the case primarily involves procedural issues, such as class ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1992
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1992, page 4
America is again being set adrift upon shifting sand, just when our economy is so fragile. And so the Police State enters its battle cry, "Let's get tough on crime!" Then we watch the prime time results. Anarchy momentarily explodes, then the police move in to "control the situation and ...
Editorial Comments
By Ed Mead
Welcome to another issue of the newsletter. I've been so busy putting out a special issue of the PLN for prison law libraries across the country that I have not had much time to write my comments for this month. We are sending out a ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1992
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1992, page 5
California's execution of Robert Alton Harris - the state's first execution in 25 years - has highlighted tension between the U.S. Supreme Court and the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals over the death penalty appeals process.
Judges on the Ninth Circuit issued four last-minute stays of execution for Harris, ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1992
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1992, page 5
A dentist who has treated patients at the Metropolitan Corrections Center, Chicago's federal prison, recently filed a lawsuit trying to prevent the Bureau of Prisons from disclosing the fact that he has AIDS to anyone except in medically justified cases.
In what lawyers say may be the first case in ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1992
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1992, page 5
A prisoner housed in a maximum security building at a Delaware prison filed a lawsuit challenging the adequacy of the legal resources available to him. The court found the legal resources provided constitutionally inadequate and awarded him $750 in compensatory and $750 in punitive damages, as well as attorneys' fees. ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1992
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1992, page 6
Christopher Breads is a prisoner in the Erie County Jail in New York state who was forcefully injected with psychotropic drugs by jail officials. He filed suit under § 1983 claiming his right to due process had been violated. The defendants moved for summary judgment which the district court denied. ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1992
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1992, page 6
Charles Brownlee, a Wisconsin pretrial detainee filed a civil rights complaint, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, after jail officials confiscated legal documents relevant to a law suit he had filed. That suit claimed he'd been denied access to a dentist for treatment of severe pain, and that such denial ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1992
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1992, page 6
On May 18,1992, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down on due process grounds a Louisiana statute that permits insanity acquittees to be confined to a mental institution on dangerousness grounds until they prove that they are not dangerous. Once an insanity acquittee has recovered his sanity, the basis for holding ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1992
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1992, page 6
Edward Fulleton, 4-1 guard at the Clallam Bay Corrections Center (CBCC) in Clallam Bay, WA, was arrested at the prison and led away in handcuffs on April 17, 1992. Fulleton was a former foster parent who is charged in Lewis county with one count each of statutory rape in the ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1992
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1992, page 6
In April, 1991, New Jersey DOC officials at the Trenton prison banned MIM Notes (journal of the Maoist International Movement) because it contained articles on oppression at Trenton. The DOC said all future issues would also be banned. One of the prisoners, Kevin Thomas, filed suit in state court challenging ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1992
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1992, page 7
An inmate's suit claimed that he was beaten by a number of officers in the presence of the sheriff. The court found that the beating was unprovoked. It was possible that the inmate had been talking loudly, but "that was no justification for beating him."
"In this case, the evidence ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1992
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1992, page 7
Winston Holloway is an Arkansas prisoner who filed suit under § 1983 claiming that living conditions in the state prison's segregation unit violated the eighth amendment. At trial the jury ruled in favor of prison officials on all claims.
On appeal Holloway claimed that he had been denied a fair ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1992
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1992, page 7
An inmate was found guilty of fighting and creating a dangerous disturbance on the basis of his being identified in a photo of the fight by an unidentified person. At the disciplinary hearing, he denied the charges and requested the name of the unnamed source who had identified him from ...
By Ed Mead
We all hear so much about economic indicators these days, but do any of us really understand anything about them, or what they mean? How important are terms like the Consumer Price Index, Balance of Trade figures, Total Money Supply, Private Housing Units Started, Industrial Production, New ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1992
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1992, page 8
After reading your March 1992 issue of the PLN I was thoroughly disillusioned, disgusted, and very disappointed that PLN would allow a prisoners' news source to be used to propagate something very harmful to everyone incarcerated [in this state]. I am speaking of the article on HB 2834 by Carrie ...
On April 1, 1992, Troy Talbot, a prisoner here at the Clallam Bay IMU [Intensive Management Unit], was taken to the shower handcuffed and on a doggie leash. Prison guards had left the supply closet in the shower unlocked and Troy got hold of the fire hose and hosed down ...
A year ago, when the HOW board voted to make a donation to Prisoner's Legal News, we wrote to tell you how crucial we believe prison reform is in our country today and how excited we were about your ground breaking work. We were delighted with the early issues of ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1992
by G J
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1992, page 9
I wanted to write and say your newsletter is alright! I like being able to see the newest decisions that are coming down, to see how much more rights we are loosing, and losing them we are. I have something your readers might be interested in. Yesterday I received a ...
Offers To Provide Legal Information
I'm an incarcerated paralegal and am always on the lookout for new information that can aid me in my efforts to help others that are in this system. As it's well known fact that the system is in very serious trouble and the officials don't ...
